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May 10, 2016

Gone Click-Baiting'

Those who use the Internet as a news source are familiar with the term "click-bait". No matter what the content, a website earns income by generating "clicks" on theirheadlines. Therefore the headlines become more startling and the content of the storyis less and less important.It's easy for public companies to take advantage of this phenomena by pumping out trivial news knowing that reporters and bloggers will publish any piece of non-news just to get clicks.Why else would the McDonald's spin machine publish a press release announcing afour store garlic fries "test" on the west coast.The "test" is appropriately small but it has been inappropriately hyped by the Oak BrookPR department in their desperate attempts to continue the "turnaround" story.But now the four stores ran out of product - not such a big deal - McDonalds veterans will remember the supply problems in the early days of McRib. But this has generated a new round of click-baiting and the Oak Brook PR machine must claim a huge successes with garlic fries.This most certainly means the product must now go nationwide and the decision will not have been made by McDonald's customers or Operators but by PR flacks in Oak Brook.Once a new product idea is given national publicity it no longer can be called a "test"..